Health care reform and health insurance paranoia

[zeetroll]

I am trying to follow the health care reform debate with some difficulty, not the least because of the rather spotty and sensationalized reporting in the major and online media. I guess I think I know something about it, as a physician and medical school dean, and having read about it a fair amount over the years, but it's complex.

I recently have been more paranoid than I usually am (and when it comes to insurance industry I'm pretty suspicious) about the strategy of the insurance industry with health care reform, and I feel my democratic and progressive allies may be failing to think on the same devious level I am. That is, that the pubic option, as important as it is (I'm totally behind it if we can't get single payer on the table) is a trap being prepared by the insurance industry to:

a) discredit health reform in general and the pesky progressive people in particular
b) to assure greater and greater profits in the future.

How would that work? what has always challenged medicaid and medicare is that, by not covering the whole population (medicare only greater than 65 and medicaid people who are chronically disabled or impoverished) it is easy to make them look like failures of a government system. In other words, insure the cheapest group to insure under private insurance, and you can bury a whole lot of profits and inefficiency and look good compared to the government.

Now, if there is a regulation with teeth that states insurance companies can't deny based on pre-existing conditions and can't dump people once they're sick, that levels the playing field. So if you are a super wealthy, well funded multi corporate insurance industry with smart cynical people working for you, what might you do about pending threats to your business? You could make a big fuss about a public option (which actually is only a threat to you if you have to compete on something like a level playing field) and then bait and switch on a lobbying congressional level by saying "OK if we have to have a public option, we want a more watered down or removed regulation regarding pre-existing conditions and patient denial for major illness."

If that is worked out, then the public option becomes burdened with a very disproportionate load of risk and expense, and it is super easy to undermine it from the standpoint of the insurance industry. Even better, they don't have to carry the more expensive end of the health care cost of the country because it has all been shunted to a public option! Sweet, huh? I think they are laughing up their sleeves at us. So what should we be doing?

Obviously, make sure the pre-exisiting and patient dumping regulations have really sharp teeth and strong jaws to them. Second, start talking publicly about why public options and single payer plans work well in other countries (and they do). They carry the whole risk pool! If a public plan carries everyone and not the selected most costly ones of us who need care, then the overall cost is distributed across the spectrum, and it is relatively easy to control cost, with relatively less rationing of care.

A public option has to be very competitive to achieve this, I think. But it wouldn't take much, because underneath all the industry bluster and lies is the fact the american health insurance industry is pretty disgraceful as businesses go. Very high administrative costs and low payouts. Arbitrary and unfriendly user interface and lots of ugly experiences. Still, a tiny poorly funded public option might be doomed, like any under capitalized business, to look bad and confirm the biases of the anti-public infrastructure crowd. Think about it, ask your congressional representatives and the Obama administration if they've got this perspective in their strategy.

[petermargolies]

The only solution that makes sense is the single payer option. Essentially, we'd be talking about Medicare for everybody.
Insurance companies can make their money - like they do in countries where health care is run by/through the national govenment - by insuring co-pays, the difference between covered care and actual costs. (I didn't see how this made sense, until I read that Medicare will cover some procedures, like mammagrams, once every two years, but doctor/patient might want to have them more often. Insurance can cover these sort of discrepencies).
Most important, Medicare For Everybody is a three word bill, not a twelve-hundred pager. It's very easy to sell, very easy to understand and very easy to implement.

I am trying to follow the health care reform debate with some difficulty, not the least because of the rather spotty and sensationalized reporting in the major and online media. ...

[Califoon]

Did you know we got the term Medicare from Canada? That's what they call their national system. Did you know socialized medicine is a term coined coined to combat FDRs health plans when the red scare was running high?

I posted a link to a really great interview with the author of 'Healing America' on https://RussianRiver.TV in "Links we like" -Much is debunked and all health systems on the globe are discussed and compared in 40 minutes. the interview itself is on NPRs 'Fresh Air' program and I recommend it highly.

[lynn]

zeetrol…“Still, a tiny poorly funded public option might be doomed, like any under capitalized business, to look bad and confirm the biases of the anti-public infrastructure crowd”…

At this site (in their video) these doctors state basiclly the same thing...That’s why these doc’s support single payer…

https://www.madashelldoctors.com/

Another program that was on public t.v.

https://www.moneydrivenmedicine.org/


Here’s an article on the subject...
Let's Get Fundamental:

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=1


Thanks for your post zeetroll….The complexity of this debate is very confusing to a lot of people, myself included, and that’s one reason why I understand some of the fear about changing ‘the system’…

[tomcat]

Thanks for the great posts on this thread. I am trying to understand the Health Care Reform issues, but it has been very confusing. Posts and links like those on this thread have helped a lot. THANKS!

[lynn]

Hey Tom...

There's plenty of websites out there debating this issue of course...

I do think we should all be able to have the same quality of care, no matter our income...The best way that should come about, I do not know...

Right now, I'd rather see something further supporting more local, state-run health care...That served me well when I needed it...

Some say a 'Medi-Care' for all would be the simplest...Open up the option to buy into Medi-Care'...

There is the question asked...if a 'public option' would be so good...Why didn't the dems. vote to join?...

..."Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the newly created public health insurance plan. His amendment passed by just one vote in the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee. In the House, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., offered a similar amendment, and all 21 Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee voted it down. If the public plan is so great, then members of Congress should be willing to forfeit their private coverage and join the millions of Americans who would be forced into the public plan."...

These are sites with differing views...It is quite a complex issue...

https://www.thirdway.org/

What Is the Public Option? (Universal Health Care - Change.org)

NO Government Health Care

Healthcare-NOW! – Organizing for a National Single-Payer Healthcare System

Thanks for the great posts on this thread. I am trying to understand the Health Care Reform issues, but it has been very confusing. Posts and links like those on this thread have helped a lot. THANKS!